When clergy sexual abuse occurs, the underlying dynamics are often quite similar: There is a convergence of the abuser’s authority, the vulnerability of the abuser’s target, and the religious institution’s instinct for self-protection and risk management. The case of Peter E. Garcia in Los Angeles starkly demonstrates these dynamics. According to Archdiocese of Los Angeles records reported and summarized in the Los Angeles Times, the priest told therapists he had molested boys “on and off” since his ordination in 1966, and the church attributed as many as 20 victims to him.
Many of these victims were undocumented immigrants from Mexico, and Garcia assured archdiocesan officials that they would not go to the authorities. He died in 2009 without being prosecuted.
I cite this case not because it is typical but because it is brutally clarifying. It shows how deportability can become a tool of coercion, a person’s immigration precarity weaponized to secure their silence. It also shows how institutional responses can quietly align with that coercion when leaders assume, or even bank on, the likelihood that undocumented families will not report. When clergy sexual abuse happens under these conditions, the injury is not only sexual violence—it is a betrayal of refuge. The church, meant to be a sanctuary of protection, becomes a site of threat.
